Nuit Blanche Devereaux

For one sleepless night Toronto is transformed by hundreds of artists for the city's annual sunset-to-sunrise celebration of contemporary art... blah blah blah! That's what the sponsors want you to read... What we found is that many of our friends didn't enjoy the night or were "underwhelmed" in past years. Sure, it's hard to make art appeal to the masses... let alone on a REALLY COLD night.
So, what we did was our own installation! A citizens 'D.I.Y.N.B.' (Do It Yourself Nuit Blanche).

Enter iDea Ghetto - because we can't seem to do anything without our own unique brand of "Ghetto" we called it 'Nuit Blanche Devereaux'.

Our idea was simple... We had a poet and a Flash animation genius in the group and the Man with a plan (Dennis). So while "at the island" one night we hashed out what was bound to be a brilliant idea.
Poetry in motion to coin a phrase. :)
So BamBam's poetry built in to a Flash animation by Wadé (like Sade, but with a W) then projected onto Capital D's loft windows! Easy right?

While D is GREAT at nurturing an idea,  follow through isn't really in his genetic makeup. So Wadé and BamBam took on the task of converting the Ghetto Loft (kinda like the Turtle Layer) windows into a canvas for 'Words Glowing From Darkness' (that's what we called the installation).
Make no mistake, we are all an equal and integral part of each of our inspirations.

The following series of pics show the process and testing involved in getting to the final (and fantastic) end piece.

What seemed to be a simple idea turned out to have it's fair share of obstacles.. Capital D has  permanently installed vinyl artwork of his own DNA sequence placed in each of the three center panels of his loft windows. (see bottom right image) When projecting light from behind this translucent artwork, an image becomes proportionally more blurred than the other six clear glass panels.

The challenge was to block out the DNA sequence, yet still see the final projection as one cohesive message. BamBam and Wadé went to work and measured each window, then covered it with white paper while blocking out completely the DNA vinyl artwork. With the window measurements in hand, Wadé created his animated project in Adobe Flash, accommodating for the center panels not affecting the final layout of the animations.

The projector was set and BamBam's poetry was shown for all of Dundas Street East to see! Lots of folks stopped by and viewed the poetry, and it was great to hear the many compliments! Capital D made a point of inviting those that stopped by to create their own D.I.Y.N.B. next year!

Our good friend Pierre joined us for stepping out to view the 'official' installations around the city, and then headed back to the loft for more laughs and decided it was high time to 'become the art!' So, naturally, we started dancing.. In front of the projector, where else! Do I hear a Shadow puppet installation idea for next year!?
Now, Here is the final animation we projected... you'll get the gist.